Police issue warrant for Michael Jackson

Reporter: Andrew Geoghegan

KERRY O'BRIEN: The stellar music career of Michael Jackson, increasingly marred by the weird extremes and scandal of his private life over the past decade, is in tatters tonight as he faces criminal charges for alleged child molestation.

While Jackson has strenuously denied the charges, he has indicated he will surrender himself to the Santa Barbara police, who issued a warrant for his arrest earlier today, our time, following a raid on the singer's Neverland ranch.

The charges are understood to relate to a 12-year-old boy who had been a guest at Neverland.

While there may have been a sense of deja vu about today's announcement, given that the singer paid a $25 million settlement to the family of a boy who made similar allegations a decade ago, this time the stakes are even higher.

Andrew Geoghegan reports.

TELEVISION: On World News Tonight, the superstar Michael Jackson faces several counts of molesting a child.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: It's the news that's rocked the world.

JIM ANDERSON, SANTA BARBARA COUNTY SHERIFF: The service of the warrants was part of an ongoing investigation alleging criminal misconduct on the part of Michael Jackson.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: But even those who know the man behind the image acknowledge there's a certain inevitability about Michael Jackson's latest scandal.

J RANDY TARABORRELLI, BIOGRAPHER: He's absolutely guilty of creating an appearance of impropriety, over the years, where children are concerned.

And my personal feeling is that, after the allegations of 10 years ago were settled, it probably would have been best for him to never have anything further to do with children, other than his own.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: For a pop icon with a predilection for bizarre behaviour, Michael Jackson has made himself an easy target.

He's a 45-year-old man who surrounds himself with prepubescent boys who, by his own admission, sleep in his bed.

MICHAEL JACKSON: But I have slept in a bed with many children.

MARTIN BASHIR, 'LIVING WITH MICHAEL JACKSON' DOCUMENTARY MAKER: But is that right, Michael?

MICHAEL JACKSON: It's very right.

It's very loving.

That's what the world needs now ... more love.

More heart.

MARTIN BASHIR: The world needs a man who's 44 sleeping in a bed with children?

MICHAEL JACKSON: No, no, you're making it all wrong.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: His affection for children has left the singer wide open to accusations that he's a child molester.

MICHAEL JACKSON: These statements about me are totally false, as I have maintained from the very beginning.

I am hoping for a speedy end to this horrifying, horrifying experience to which I have been subjected.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Ten years ago, Jordy Chandler, a 13-year-old befriended by Michael Jackson, alleged the entertainer touched him inappropriately while at a sleep-over at Jackson's Neverland ranch.

However, the boy never testified against Michael Jackson.

Instead, Jordy Chandler's parents settled the civil case out of court, accepting a $20 million payout from the singer.

No charges were ever laid.

MICHAEL JACKSON: If I am guilty of anything, it is of giving all that I have ... all that I have to give to help children all over the world.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: The latest molestation allegations have a familiar ring about them.

They were made by a 12-year-old boy and relate to an incident which occurred at the singer's ranch two months ago.

The boy reportedly told a psychiatrist who informed police.

DIANE DIMOND, COURT TV: This family, I'm told by sources, is devastated by what happened.

Police raided the singer's Neverland ranch in California as his latest album was hitting music stores.

MICHAEL DOWNS: Michael only releases an album these days, you know, maybe every three years, so the fact that these allegations came out on the exact day that he released his new album in the US ... what are the chances of that?

I think the allegations are absolute rubbish.

If Michael Jackson is guilty of anything, it's of being naive.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Michael Downs is arguably Michael Jackson's number one fan in Australia.

He ran the fan club which is now disbanded.

Its members have grown older and lost interest.

Having met his idol, Michael Downs thinks he understands why children are at the centre of Michael Jackson's world.

MICHAEL DOWNS: Even if it's only for a second, he makes you feel so comfortable and maybe that's another reason why he gets himself in trouble because people feel so comfortable around him, children and adults alike.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Michael Jackson has admitted he's a middle-aged man trying to recapture a childhood he never had.

He began his life of stardom aged just four-years-old, performing as the youngest member of the Jackson Five, an all-brother group driven by a father hell-bent on success.

Stories of his strange behaviour emerged when he became an adult and launched his solo career, which only fuelled the success of Thriller - the biggest album of all time.

It turned the pop singer into a global icon.

JON CASIMIR, MUSIC CRITIC: Michael Jackson is the kind of artist that ... I remember going to China in the early '90s and spending three months in China and all you would see in remote villages of China, the only sense of any Western influence at all, was little bootleg cassettes of Michael Jackson.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: But, at the peak of his popularity, Michael Jackson was already recasting his image, quite literally.

Over the next decade, his face would undergo a radical transformation, while he attempted in vain to recapture the magic of his first album.

Pop culture writer Jon Casimir has watched admiration for the former King of Pop turn to ridicule.

JON CASIMIR: Michael Jackson has outgrown his own musical legend.

A long time ago he kind of slipped the moorings of being a musical star and went on to become something culturally quite different, much the same as Elvis Presley did.

But it actually took until after Elvis's death until it happened with him.

With Michael it's happened while he's alive.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: California prosecutors have indicated they'll be charging the reclusive star with multiple counts of molestation, each charge carries a penalty of up to eight years in prison.

AL DEBLANC, DEFENCE LAWYER: If the victim in the child molestation case is under 14 years of age, there's a special enhancement that adds a lot of years.

And if the defendant is 10 years older than the victim, there's another enhancement that adds even more years.

There's no limit on the stacking for each act committed in one occasion.

JON CASIMIR: If he goes to jail, obviously that would do him long-term damage.

It's hard to imagine what you could say about Michael Jackson that would make people think any differently, or think that he's any less or more weird than they already think.

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